This invention relates to an energy absorber and more particularly to a configuration for an energy absorbing device for vehicle use that accepts frontal and lateral impacts while meeting both vehicle jacking and towing requirements.
In recent years, vehicle safety has become a major concern of both the public and the manufacturer. Furthermore, legislation calling for automotive bumpers to protect motor vehicles from sustaining significant damage in an 8-km/h (5-mph) impact has increased public awareness of vehicle safety while imposing restraints on the manufacturer who must meet the legislative requirement while attempting to hold down overall manufacturing costs.
Thus, many types of energy absorbing systems have been devised to meet the legislative requirement. These systems have become sophisticated and complex to the point of adding substantial cost and weight to the vehicle at a time when weight reduction is important for decreased fuel consumption. Furthermore, these prior art devices make it extremely difficult to optimize energy absorption and spatial requirements in a single system that is adaptable to many different vehicle sizes and frame configurations.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an energy absorber that is assembled from a minimum of parts, is adaptable to many types of mounting configurations, meets the present legislative requirement for frontal and lateral impact safety, absorbs more energy at lower impact forces, accepts vertical loads such as experienced in vehicle jacking situations, and accepts horizontal towing loads that are in a direction opposite to the frontal impact loads against which the device is originally designed to provide protection.